The Postman

Each day, the postman goes to the depot, collects his van full of letters and parcels and sets out on his route, delivering his packages. As he walks, he often comes across businesses and people that he sees every day.

There’s one house in particular that he often has parcels for, and the owner always appears to be in. Over time, they developed a cordial relationship, trading comments on the news of the day and how each other’s lives are going.

Eventually curiosity gets the better of the postman and he asks the owner – “What’s in all the packages?”

The owner invites him to come back at the end of his route and see. The postman returns later in the day and the home owner invites him in and offering him a cup of tea, explains that they run a business for themselves from home. The packages are their products and sales materials, it’s hard work but they work at it every day, building their future independent of the rat race.

The postman in enthralled by this, he asks them what they are doing, and how they do it, he’d never thought of working for himself… Could he do it too?

The entrepreneur sits and explains a little. He tells the postman that it’s more important that you find something that you love to do and work at that, rather than just trying to sell something.

Finding a business that you can run for yourself, something that you love to do, or are enthused about every day, is the hardest part. If you can find that and make a business out of it, it makes everything else much easier.

Building a business that is centered around what you love and playing to those strengths makes each day an easier challenge. The postman considered all this and thanking the entrepreneur, set off home thinking about his own future. Ideas he had considered before but had no idea how to put into practice came to his mind.

Several years later, he returned to that same home owner, that same entrepreneur, he thanked him sincerely for his advice and the time he’d taken in explaining some of the challenges in starting one’s own business. He had taken all that advice and decided to try it for himself.

He told the entrepreneur about his own business, he had always loved brewing ales, and now he was running his own microbrewery. It had been a loved hobby for years, making his own ales and flavored beers, but he’d never thought before that that hobby could become a viable business.

It had taken some help from the bank and a few years to get running and get independent pubs stocking his produce, but in the previous year for the first time, he had been able to pay himself a full salary and had resigned from the post office.

Now each day he was able to work on something he loved, rather than just try to make ends meet.

So here’s my question to you dear reader… What hobby can you turn into your future gold? Think about this and develop a plan to liberate yourself by following your passion and turning it into a business.